Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a numerical controller, and more particularly, to a numerical controller capable of enabling even a beginner to easily retrieve an object code.
Description of the Related Art
A manual data input (MDI) operation is often performed in minor management work such as preparatory work or tool replacement for a machine tool controlled by a MDI program. Ad hoc programs (one-line programs, hereinafter referred to as “MDI programs”) are used in the MDI operation (e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-066711).
Many of MDI programs input for MDI operations for the same purpose have similar contents. For example, it is very likely that the same contents of an MDI program input and executed today for warm-up or tool replacement may also have been input and executed yesterday and the day before yesterday. In some cases, therefore, MDI programs to be frequently used are registered in advance in a memory of a numerical controller or the like so that they can be reused afterwards.
However, there are various types of MDI programs to be used frequently. If all these MDI programs are registered, it inevitably takes time to find a target program from the registered MDI programs.
In order to reduce labor to find the target program from a number of MDI programs, a method is provided such that the MDI programs are classified into some categories, such as warm-up, tool replacement, and the like. It is very time-consuming, however, to previously assume necessary MDI programs and determine how to classify them.
Further, there is a problem that much labor is required to re-correct the registered MDI programs or their categorization if the laboriously determined categorization is wrong or the contents of work are changed.